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00:00So, the Iliad is the foundation of Greek civilization, which is the greatest civilization in human history, the most creative.
00:10It gave us Plato, Thucydides, Herodotus, Isulis, Eurubites, Sophocles.
00:20Greek civilization is essentially the foundation for Western civilization.
00:24So, the question we will look at today is, how is it possible that one epic poem can give birth
00:33to a civilization?
00:35Okay?
00:36So, the thing to understand about Greek civilization is that there are two important concepts.
00:41The first is Erethe.
00:43Sorry.
00:47Erethe.
00:53The second is Eudaimonia.
00:59So, Erethe means virtue, excellence, or character.
01:05It's something that makes you special, what you excel at.
01:08Okay?
01:09And traditionally, there are two types of Erethe.
01:12There's war fighting.
01:17And there is speech making.
01:24In Greek civilization, the paragon of the warrior is, of course, Achilles.
01:33And the paragon of the great orator, the great speaker, is Odysseus.
01:42So, we are reading the Iliad right now.
01:47And then, after we finish the Iliad, we will read the Odyssey.
01:50Okay?
01:51So, these are the two great characters in Greek civilization.
01:55Achilles, the great warrior, and Odysseus, the great orator.
02:00Okay?
02:01Eudaimonia means flourishing.
02:06And the idea of Eudaimonia is that you can only be happy.
02:10You can only be yourself when you are achieving your Erethe.
02:17When you are expressing your Erethe.
02:20So, for example, Achilles.
02:23In the Iliad, he tells us that before he came to Troy, he was given a prophecy.
02:28He could either die old at home or die young, but a hero on the shores of Troy.
02:38And he said, well, duh, of course I'm going to die young in Troy.
02:43Because only by fighting, only by winning glory, can I achieve Eudaimonia.
02:50Okay?
02:50And that's why he's so unhappy when he gets in a fight with Agamemnon and he has to set up
02:55the war.
02:56And he thinks of different ways of getting back into the battle.
03:00Because without fighting, he can't be Achilles.
03:03He is the paragon of the warrior.
03:07Okay?
03:07So, that's the idea of Eudaimonia.
03:09I can only be happy when I am being my creative best.
03:12When I am achieving my true potential.
03:16Okay?
03:18Now, for the Greeks, war fighting and speech making are really the same thing, but for different means.
03:25Okay?
03:25So, when you fight a war, what you're trying to do is you're trying to impose your reality onto the
03:32world.
03:32And make others believe what you believe.
03:35Right?
03:35You do that through force.
03:36By brute strength, you show that you're superior and therefore others must obey you.
03:43But speech making is actually trying to achieve the same thing.
03:48Okay?
03:49But through words.
03:51Okay?
03:51So, rather than through force, through beauty and through truth, you're trying to create a new reality that others submit
03:59to.
04:00And the example, of course, is the speeches between Odysseus and Achilles.
04:07Okay?
04:08Odysseus and Achilles.
04:13All right.
04:14So, remember the context.
04:17Achilles gets the fight with Agamemnon.
04:19He refuses to fight and the Trojans, led by Hector, are destroying the Greeks.
04:25So, Agamemnon and Odysseus and the others, Nestor, have a war council and they agree that they'll go and beg
04:32Achilles to come back.
04:33Okay?
04:34And Odysseus and Nestor and others, they go to Achilles and they present an argument to Achilles.
04:43And Odysseus gives a very long speech.
04:45Now, the question for us is, why are the speeches in the Iliad so goddamn long, right?
04:53Because Odysseus can simply say, hey Achilles, we'll give you a million dollars.
04:57Will you fight for us, please?
04:58He can also say, hey Achilles, we're losing a war.
05:01Stop being an asshole.
05:02Come fight for us.
05:02Okay?
05:03He can make it very, very short.
05:06Why is it so long?
05:09Right?
05:10And then Achilles, his response can be like, no.
05:13Well, okay, but he also offers a very long speech.
05:19And the answer is, they're not trying to respond to each other.
05:23They're trying to create their own reality.
05:25Okay?
05:26So, with a speech, what you're really trying to do is, you're trying to project a movie onto the world.
05:35You're trying to create a new reality that others must inhabit.
05:39Okay?
05:40That's why speech making is like war fighting.
05:42You're trying to create your own reality and then post it on others.
05:45Right?
05:46So, remember what Odysseus is doing.
05:48He knows that Achilles, for him, it's really about face, right?
05:52He's lost face in front of the others.
05:56And that's why he won't back down.
05:59That's why he insists on Agamemnon apologizing.
06:02Okay?
06:03But Odysseus also knows that Agamemnon himself won't apologize.
06:08So, for Odysseus, because he is the great orator, that is his erite, what he's going to try to do
06:15is try to create a new reality that Achilles inhabits.
06:21And, um, which will convince him to join Odysseus in the war.
06:28Okay?
06:28So, how does he do that?
06:29What he does is he expands the imagination of Achilles.
06:36All right?
06:36That's why the speech is so long.
06:37Because he's trying to create a new emotional reality for Achilles.
06:41Right now, Achilles isn't selfish, right?
06:44So, what does Odysseus say to Achilles?
06:46The first thing he says is, Achilles, I want you to imagine this.
06:51Before us is a great feast.
06:52We can see this feast.
06:55Now, I want you to imagine what's the opposite of this feast.
06:59A great desert where we're all dying, we're all starving.
07:02And that's the war we're fighting right now against the Trojans.
07:05That's why we need you back.
07:07Okay?
07:08So, it's a powerful image.
07:09And then he uses imagery to take Achilles to the present.
07:15Where Hector is this giant, this god, running around, killing all Greeks before him.
07:24Okay?
07:25And then he takes Achilles back to the past and says,
07:28Remember your father, Peleus.
07:30Before you came to the war, you promised him that you would win glory for him.
07:34You promised that you would win glory for the Greeks.
07:37Okay?
07:37Then he takes Achilles to the future, which is, let's imagine what happens when we win this war.
07:44When we win this war, all the riches of Troy, all the treasures, will belong to you, Achilles.
07:51Again, Manon will give you his daughter for a bride.
07:55And you will be the glory of all of Greece.
07:58You have treasures and treasures.
08:01Think about the present.
08:02Think about the present.
08:03Think about the past.
08:05Think about the future.
08:06Okay?
08:07Expand your mind, Achilles.
08:09Right?
08:10That's what Odysseus is doing.
08:13He's trying to expand Achilles' imagination.
08:15And once you enter this world that Odysseus has created, then you will be convinced to join him.
08:23Okay?
08:24So that's what speech making is.
08:25Speech making is projecting a movie onto the world that everyone can observe and then absorb this new reality.
08:34Okay?
08:34Internalize this new reality.
08:36Right?
08:37And Achilles knows this.
08:41And Achilles refuses to be beaten.
08:43Right?
08:44So Achilles, for his speech, counters Odysseus with his own reality, which is a very self-absorbed reality.
08:55Okay?
08:56Right?
08:56So rather than expanding outwards like Odysseus wants, Achilles continues to expand, to contract inwards.
09:04Right?
09:04He uses the word I, I, I a lot.
09:07Right?
09:07Me, me, me.
09:09Odysseus never uses I or we.
09:11He's always like we.
09:12Okay?
09:13So Achilles says, hey, I understand that Neft, Hector, to you is a god, but when I saw him, he
09:20ran away from me.
09:22Right?
09:23Oh, Peleus, my dad, I should go home to see him.
09:25So goodbye, guys.
09:27And like, I got on his daughter for my wife.
09:32I spit on her.
09:33I don't want him to miss crap.
09:36Okay?
09:36So it's like, so he contracts inwards.
09:38Okay?
09:39So, and that's why the speech is too long, is so long.
09:42Because in speech making, it's a war of realities.
09:47It's a war of narratives.
09:49And you create narratives through speeches.
09:53Okay?
09:54But not only that, but there's certain techniques to speeches.
09:57Because the goal of speeches is not just to paint a reality, but you want to paint a reality in
10:02which it is internalized by the others.
10:05And therefore, you must make it memorable.
10:08Okay?
10:09So remember, in the beginning of class, I had you do an assignment, which is write down the speech.
10:16Right?
10:16And even though you didn't force yourself to memorize it, you're able to memorize a lot.
10:21Okay?
10:22And that shows you the power of the speech.
10:25The question in it is, what makes the speech so powerful?
10:28And the answer is, because it's poetry, guys.
10:31Okay?
10:32Poetry.
10:33And the elements of poetry, of course, are imagery.
10:38And this is what Odysseus does well.
10:40This is what he specializes in.
10:41Okay?
10:42Drawing pictures for you to see.
10:45Okay?
10:46Metaphors, connections.
10:47Okay?
10:48Metaphors is what we call connections.
10:50And connections are things that help you clarify reality.
10:55Okay?
10:56And which shows you things that you couldn't see before.
11:00So, for example, if I say, the sky is like the sea, that doesn't really surprise you.
11:06Okay?
11:07If I say, the sky is like a snail, well, that surprises you.
11:12And because it surprises you, you remember it.
11:14Okay?
11:14And because you remember it, it reorders the way you see reality.
11:19All right?
11:20You also have diction, choice of words, syntax.
11:26Okay?
11:27And these are things that both Odysseus and Achilles specialize in.
11:31Especially Odysseus.
11:35Okay?
11:36Doesn't make sense.
11:37All right?
11:38So, they're trying to create these narratives through their speeches.
11:45And they have these techniques.
11:47And guess what?
11:49The Greeks, their education system was very simple.
11:52All they had to do was memorize the Iliad.
11:54Okay?
11:55Because when you memorize the Iliad, you learn how to make a great speech.
12:01All right?
12:01And you understood that for me to make a great speech, I need to have impact.
12:05I need people to remember what I say.
12:08I need to imprint myself on others.
12:10All right?
12:11And this becomes, this system becomes the very basis of racialization.
12:18All right?
12:19Speech making.
12:20Where if you're getting done, you have to go in front of people and make a speech and create a
12:25reality for people to accept.
12:28All right?
12:28And this is what leads to democracy.
12:31Okay?
12:31Are we clear?
12:32Now, I want to talk about how, in fact, Homer creates civilization.
12:43Okay?
12:44All right.
12:46So, Immanuel Kant.
12:53Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher.
12:56And he's primarily concerned with how we understand reality.
13:00Why do we see the things that we do?
13:04Why do we think the thoughts that we have?
13:07And he wrote a very good book called The Critique of Pure Reason, in which he outlines this theory.
13:13Okay?
13:14So, and what he tells us is this.
13:16Traditionally, we've understood ourselves as passive observers of reality.
13:22Okay?
13:23This thing is before us.
13:24We stand before it, and we try to understand it.
13:29Okay?
13:31What Kant teaches us is that, no, we are, in fact, active participants in reality.
13:38And we shape and form the reality before us.
13:43Okay?
13:43So, Kant divides the world into two.
13:52The first world is the world of objective reality.
13:57The things in themselves.
14:02Or the nomina.
14:07Okay?
14:09And what's the nomina?
14:11They're just vibrations.
14:12Okay?
14:12We talked about this, right?
14:13The entire world is sound, vibrations, frequencies.
14:16So, we can actually see these things.
14:18So, what we do is we filter the world around us and turn them into things that we can understand.
14:25Called the phenomena.
14:30Which are the things to us, okay?
14:33Things to us.
14:35Or the things that seem to us.
14:37Alright?
14:37And we do so through a filter called time and space.
14:43So, time and space do not exist outside of us.
14:48They exist inside of us in order for us to understand reality.
14:53Okay?
14:53So, time, what does time mean?
14:56Time just means sequence.
14:59Alright?
14:59Sequence is just like one, two, three, four, five.
15:04We put things in sequence.
15:05We create time.
15:07Space is the idea of sensation.
15:11Okay?
15:11Sensation is just basically the five senses, right?
15:15Alright?
15:17Now, time and space do not exist outside of us.
15:19Because everything outside of us is just pure energy, okay?
15:21But our minds can't perceive pure energy, therefore we use time and space, sequence and sensation to understand the world
15:30around us.
15:31To order the world around us.
15:35Okay?
15:38So, but what this means is that if we're able to control time and space, we can control reality unto
15:50itself.
15:51Okay?
15:51Does that make sense?
15:52And what does this feel like to control time and space?
15:54This thing is called language.
16:02Before, we would just each perceive our own time and space.
16:06With language, okay, we're now able to come to a collective understanding of reality.
16:17And who creates language?
16:18Poets create language.
16:24And therefore, poets, for their poetry, create reality unto itself.
16:30That's what this is trying to do.
16:32He's trying to, for his poetry, create a new reality for everyone to live in.
16:37A reality in which people get along.
16:39A reality in which people, like Achilles, are able to forget their hatred against Achaemenon and fight for the common
16:47good.
16:48Okay?
16:50Alright?
16:51So, even though each of us has our own understanding of reality,
16:57a poet is able to create a language that is so beautiful that it comes into us,
17:04and we internalize the language, we absorb the language,
17:07and we together create a new reality with the language as the building blocks.
17:14Okay?
17:15Does that make sense, guys?
17:17Alright.
17:18Alright.
17:18So, let me explain now how Homer is able to do this.
17:23Okay?
17:23Let's talk about how Homer is able to do this.
17:26Homer.
17:30How is a poet able to create reality?
17:35Okay.
17:36So, a poet is unique in the world.
17:39Poets are really prophets, okay?
17:44So, if you look at all these great religious figures of the past, including Jesus, including Zorathusta,
17:51they weren't religious figures.
17:53They were really poets.
17:55Okay?
17:55And how they were able to work is they have a divine connection to the universe.
18:13So, there are different names for the universe.
18:16Okay?
18:17So, Hegel, the German philosopher, used the term Geist.
18:23Geist, Geist.
18:24Geist, okay?
18:25What is Geist?
18:27Well, Geist, it's hard to translate because it's German, okay?
18:31But, think of it as three English words, and in fact, actually, Geist will give us three English words.
18:37These three English words are ghost, gist, gist, and geyser, okay?
18:43Geyser is an eruption, okay?
18:46Ghost is the underlying thing.
18:49And, uh, the gist, the essence, okay?
18:52Okay, and that's what the geist is.
18:53The geist is all around us.
18:55It's like the ghost.
18:56It's always changing.
18:57It's always becoming.
18:58It's always erupting like a geyser.
19:00And it's really the essence of things, the gist, okay?
19:04All right?
19:05Um, Carl Jung, the word he uses is Eclective Unconscious.
19:10Eclective Unconscious.
19:15Uh, Plato will use the realm of the forms and ideals.
19:24Okay?
19:25Christians will say heaven, whatever, okay?
19:31All right?
19:32But these are the universe, all right?
19:34And remember how we said before, um, our memories are stored in the universe.
19:41The universe is almost like a divine psychic internet, right?
19:44So every single memory is stored inside the universe.
19:53And what poets do is they're able to access this universe.
20:00And as a result, they're able to summon the memories of the universe.
20:08And they do, and when they do that, they create epics of poetry, okay?
20:15All right, the Iliad.
20:20Now as I keep on discussing when we read the Iliad, each character is a real person, okay?
20:28Each character has a living past, present, and future.
20:35By reading the speech of Patroclus, you understand his memories.
20:40You understand where he came from, what he wants, and where he's going, okay?
20:45So everyone in the Iliad is a living, breathing character.
20:49And how is Homer able to do that?
20:50He's able to do that because he's able to summon these people from the universe, okay?
20:55Even though you're dead, your consciousness is still alive in the universe.
21:01Even though Homer is longer with us, his consciousness is still within the universe.
21:06So it's possible through intense meditation to actually connect with Homer, Dante, Shakespeare,
21:15whoever, okay?
21:16They're all there.
21:17And that's what Homer is doing.
21:18He's able to connect with these people and bring them into the Iliad, okay?
21:25But because these people are living,
21:33the Iliad itself is a living memory, okay?
21:37What I mean by that is, okay, the purpose of the Iliad is to create a memory,
21:45a living memory for people to observe, okay?
21:52So remember, Homer, he is a bard.
21:55At this time, people don't read and write.
21:57So what he's doing is, he's doing what Odysseus is doing,
21:59which is he's going from town to town,
22:01people are surrounding him, there's a hundred people,
22:04and then for the entire evening, he recites his poetry.
22:08And he's doing what Odysseus is doing, he's painting a movie for everyone to observe together.
22:16And it's the same thing when you go to a movie theater where, yes, it's the same movie,
22:20but everyone's experience is going to be different, okay?
22:23And how it becomes different is that you implant your own consciousness,
22:30your own understanding into the Iliad.
22:33So it becomes a shared creation.
22:36And when you do that, what happens is that, and this is really important, guys,
22:41you connect directly to the universe, okay?
22:47So in other words, the Iliad was created because of inspiration from the universe,
22:53but it's also a portal into the universe itself.
22:58And this is what allows for new creations, okay?
23:08So as you are observing the Iliad, because your own experience is different,
23:14because your own connection to the universe is unique, by interpreting the Iliad,
23:20you create a new universe onto itself, okay?
23:25And this is what we call together a process we call civilization.
23:34All right?
23:35This is what happened.
23:37This is why one poem, the Iliad, was able to give birth to an entire civilization.
23:42Because it was so alive, so powerful, so connected to the universe itself, to the monad,
23:50that when you observed it, you created into yourself a portal into the monad,
23:57the universe, the heavens, and it allowed you to create your own universe,
24:01that then connected back to the monad, okay?
24:11So it's just one dialogue, all right?
24:17Any questions?
24:19Are you guys clear about this?
24:22All right?
24:23And think about this, all right?
24:26This is what the Greeks did.
24:27And how do we know it's true?
24:29Because even today, the Iliad speaks to us, right?
24:36The Iliad, when we read it, we can identify with Odysseus.
24:42We can understand Achilles.
24:44We can relate Achilles to ourselves.
24:48We can predict how Achilles will behave, okay?
24:53And that's proof that this Iliad is eternal and immortal because it connects us to the monad.
25:08But knowing that, and this is the most important, is that you may not know this,
25:12but the more you read the Iliad, the more it's opening your mind, okay?
25:16Your mind is an antenna, okay?
25:18Your mind is an antenna to the universe, right?
25:22So when you read the Iliad, it's as though your download speed is now increasing.
25:27You have a fast connection, strong connection now to the internet.
25:31And so they're able to absorb more, okay?
25:35When you're able to absorb more, you're able to create new realities in which you're able to observe,
25:40in which you're able to analyze deeper, all right?
25:44And that's why we read the great books.
25:47Because it is literally, it allows us to connect and talk to God itself, okay?
25:57Doesn't make sense, guys.
25:59All right.
26:00So, yeah.
26:05Any questions before I move on?
26:08All right.
26:08Okay, so what I'm going to do now is, we're going to read together,
26:15sorry, we're going to read together an essay by Percy Shelley.
26:20It's called The Defense of Poetry.
26:22And he explains how this happens, okay?
26:25All right.
26:25So now that I'm giving you the theory, we'll see how Percy Shelley was a very famous British romantic poet.
26:33How he explains this, okay?
26:38Okay, sorry.
26:40Okay, sorry.
26:47Okay.
26:48Okay.
26:51Okay.
26:52Okay.
26:52Okay.
26:52Okay.
26:54Okay.
26:56Okay.
27:05All right, so this is from his essay, The Defense of Poetry, okay?
27:11And it's a very long essay, but I'll just highlight for you certain aspects.
27:15Okay, so he's talking about how Homer created Greek civilization.
27:22And Homer was a bard poet, but he had a heavy influence on the playwrights, okay?
27:29The three big playwrights, of course, are Ischeles, Sophocles, and Eubiles.
27:34And the theater will become the very essence of Athenian life, okay?
27:41So what you did for fun was you would go to the theater.
27:45But the theater was more than just entertainment.
27:48It was about education.
27:49It was about enlightenment and a vacation, okay?
27:52So he talks about the theater in Athens, okay?
27:56The drama in Athens, or who,
28:00wheresoever else it may have approached to its perfection,
28:03ever coincides with the moral and actual greatness of the age, all right?
28:09So the theater at Athens provoked these tremendous feelings in people that made them into moral people with ambition, with
28:22creativity, all right?
28:24The tragedies of Athenian poets are as mirrors in which a spectator beholds himself under a thin disguise of circumstance,
28:32shriveled all by that ideal perfection energy which everyone feels to be the internal type of all that he loves,
28:38admires, and would become, all right?
28:40Okay, so again, the idea of poetry, the idea of truth is that it's a mirror in which you can
28:46look at yourself and you can look at the world around you.
28:51Achilles, Odysseus, are in you, and you are in them, and by observing them objectively, you can better understand yourself.
29:00The imagination is enlarged by sympathy with pains and passions so mighty that they stand in their conception,
29:07the capacity of that by which they are conceived, the good affections are strengthened by pity, indignation, terror, and sorrow,
29:13and the exact calm is prolonged from the safety of this high exercise of them into the tumult of familiar
29:19life, okay?
29:21So the idea of Greek tragedy is epiphany and catharsis.
29:33So if you look at Greek tragedy, there's a very common pattern, okay?
29:39So there's a tragic character, and he's undone by hubris, and that's a great tragic flaw, his hubris, he's arrogant.
29:47Achilles has hubris, he thinks he's better than everyone else, and every man has hubris, he's better than everyone else,
29:53okay?
29:54Patroclus will die because of hubris, Hector will die because of hubris, so it's hubris that is the great killer
30:01of people, okay?
30:02No matter how great you are, you will suffer from hubris.
30:05The greater you are, the more you will suffer from hubris, which can only lead to tragedy.
30:09And you're observing this, and you recognize that, oh, it's hubris that leads to tragedy,
30:18and therefore, it will make you a much more humble person, okay?
30:20This is what we call epiphany.
30:24But regardless of your epiphany, you're still going to face tragedy, okay?
30:30The person is still going to fall.
30:35So, Hector, no matter how great he is, he's still going to die.
30:39Patroclus, no matter how innocent he is, he's still going to die, okay?
30:42And this will lead, and so what happens is, you feel a connection with that person.
30:48You cry, and this leads to catharsis, okay?
30:51Catharsis is basically purge.
30:55Whatever feelings that you have, you cry, you purge your feelings.
30:59You purge your hubris, you purge your hatred, okay?
31:02And this will make you a whole person.
31:05But when you commit catharsis, what happens is that you now connect with the character itself.
31:11So, the character now lives in you, and you live in the character, okay?
31:17And that will make you a much better person.
31:21Does that make sense, guys?
31:23All right, even crime is disarmed of half its horror and all its contagion by being represented
31:29as a fatal consequence of the unfathomable agency of nature.
31:32Era is thus diversity of its willfulness.
31:35Men can no longer cherish in it as a creation of their choice.
31:38In a drama of the highest order, there is little food for censor or hatred.
31:42It teaches rather than self-knowledge and self-respect.
31:45Neither the eye nor the mind can see itself unless reflected upon that which it resembles.
31:49The drama, so long as it continues to express poetry, is as a prismatic and many-sided mirror
31:55which collects the brightest rays of human nature and divides and reproduces them from
31:59the simplicity of these elementary forms and touches them with majesty and beauty and multiplies
32:04all that it reflects and indulges it with the power of propagating its like wherever it may fall, okay?
32:10So, this is very long, but it's a very simple idea.
32:12The idea is that when you watch a tragedy, okay?
32:18When you observe a tragedy, you're observing a fundamental truth about human nature, okay?
32:25Which is that we're all going to be tragic.
32:28The classic case is Oedipus, okay?
32:31Oedipus is a man who killed his father and married his mother.
32:35And when he discovers the truth, he blinds himself and then he goes into exile, okay?
32:42And if you actually read the tragedy by Soplachys, he did nothing wrong.
32:48It was just fate.
32:49It was just an accident.
32:51But unfortunately, that's what life is about, okay?
32:54So, you are a great person when you're able to acknowledge your limitations.
33:02You're able to acknowledge fate and destiny, but you struggle regardless, okay?
33:10That's what erite, that's what eudaimony is.
33:12To recognize your limitations, to recognize the universe may have a grudge against you,
33:17but you struggle on regardless, okay?
33:20And that story, when you watch it yourself, it brings sorrow to you, it brings pity,
33:27but it makes you also much more wise and reflective about the world that we live in,
33:33okay?
33:33And that creates wisdom, that creates empathy, that creates morality, okay?
33:39And that's why Greek drama is so important, okay?
33:42Now, let's look at another passage.
33:46Poets are not only subject to the experiences or spirits of the most refined organization,
33:50but they can color all that they combine with the evidence and hues of this ethereal role,
33:54okay?
33:55All right, this is a really important idea.
33:56Remember how he said that poets have a connection to the vine, right?
33:59So, they are absorbing the geist.
34:02They are absorbing the monad, okay?
34:04But at the same time, they're absorbing the world around us, the material, okay?
34:09They're observing human nature.
34:10They're observing nature, like life itself.
34:14And what they do is they combine these two together, okay?
34:17The present with the eternal, the here with the forever.
34:22And they turn it into words that are able to express both the material and the spiritual.
34:30The here and the forever, the present and the eternal, okay?
34:36A word, a trait, and a representation of a scene or a passion will touch the internal cord,
34:41okay?
34:42A diction or metaphor.
34:46Enchanted cord.
34:47Enchanted cord is just your connection to the vine, okay?
34:49Okay?
34:50So, this word, because it's so beautiful, this sentence is so beautiful, will reawaken your memory, okay?
34:58This is a really important idea where we are always in a process of reincarnation, all right?
35:06So, why are we here in this world?
35:08Because there are things that we can experience that we cannot experience in the spiritual.
35:13When we're in the spiritual, we are formless.
35:16We don't have any bodies.
35:17Therefore, we cannot have sex, we cannot have pain, we cannot love, okay?
35:22But in this world, we can.
35:23But what's important to understand is that when we reincarnate into this world,
35:27our memories of our former selves and of the spiritual are lost to us.
35:34Otherwise, we can't actually live the life that we live, okay?
35:38But poetry, because it connects both to the divine and to the present,
35:43certain words will spark your soul.
35:47And your soul is the forever memory of all your lives and your connection to the spiritual, okay?
35:54That's what poetry does.
35:56Because poetry is a gateway into your soul.
36:01And re-enaminate, okay, in those who have ever experienced these emotions,
36:05the sleeping, the cold, the buried image of the past, all right?
36:09So, you have all these past lives in you that you don't remember.
36:14But a certain word, a certain poem will reignite, re-enaminate all these past lives in you
36:21and they will sum it up and say, hey, re-remember, okay?
36:24And this will elevate you.
36:27Poetry does, makes immortal, all that is best and most beautiful in the world.
36:31It arrests the vanishing apparitions which haunt the interluminations of life,
36:36unveiling them or in language or in form, sends them forth among mankind,
36:40bearing sweet news of kindred joy to those with whom the sisters abide.
36:44Because there is no more portal of expression from the caverns of the spirit which they inhabit into the universe
36:50of things.
36:51Poetry redeems from decay the visitations of the divinity in man, in man, okay?
36:56There's God in us.
36:57And poetry reminds us there is God in us.
37:00There's God everywhere.
37:01And poetry reminds us there's God everywhere.
37:04Poetry lets us see the divine everywhere, okay?
37:09We're not able to see this because of how our minds work because we're only able to see through time
37:14and space.
37:15But poetry helps us go beyond time and space and connect immediately to the eternal,
37:23okay, to the divine, to the spiritual.
37:34All things exist as they are perceived, okay?
37:37So again, the idea of Kant where we can only see things through time and space, okay?
37:44These are things we can see, but you know what?
37:47There are things that we can feel that we can't see.
37:50It's the feelings that matter.
37:52At least in relation to the percipient.
37:54The mind is its own place and of itself can make a heaven of hell a hell of heaven, okay?
38:00But what this tells us is that if we learn how to control our minds, we can control reality itself,
38:08okay?
38:10But poetry defeats a curse which binds us to be subjected to the accident of surrounding impressions, okay?
38:15Do you understand this idea?
38:16The idea is poetry activates our imagination.
38:21Before, we were in a prison of our own making.
38:24Before, we could only see what we could see.
38:27But the poetry gives us a higher sight.
38:31It allows us to see the things beyond just time and space, the eternal, the past, the future.
38:42And wherever it spreads its own figure curtain or withdraws life's dark veil from before the scene of things,
38:48it equates for us a being within our being, okay?
38:52All right?
38:53So each time we use our imagination, we create our new reality for ourselves.
38:58It makes us the inhabitants of a world to which the familiar world is a chaos.
39:02It reproduces a common universe of which we are portions and percipients and it purges from our insight,
39:08inward insight, the film of familiarity with which obscures from us the wonder of our being.
39:12It compels us to feel that which we perceive and to imagine that which we know.
39:17It creates a new universe after it has been annihilated in our minds by the recreation or impressions blunted by
39:24reiteration.
39:24It justifies the bold and true words of Tassel.
39:27None but God and the poet deserve the name of creator.
39:30The poet is the creator of our world.
39:33Because the poet has the imagination to see things beyond time and space, beyond this reality.
39:41And the poet then distills these emotions into words that help us ourselves connect to the divine, okay?
39:51Poetry is a portal to the divine.
39:57This is clear, right guys?
39:59All right, so we'll conclude.
40:02The most unfailing hero, companion, and follower of the awakening of a great people to work a benefit of
40:07a change in opinion or institution is poetry.
40:09Poetry is the basis of all civilization, okay?
40:13It is from poetry that everything must come from.
40:17At such periods, there is an accumulation of the power of communicating and receiving intent and
40:22impassioned conceptions respecting man and nature.
40:24The person in whom this power resides may often, as far as regards many portions of their nature,
40:30have little apparent correspondence with that spirit of good of which they are the ministers.
40:35But even while they deny and abjure, they are yet compelled to serve that power which is seated on
40:40the throne of their own soul, okay?
40:41So poets don't actually know they're prophets.
40:43Poets don't know they're connected to the monad or the divine.
40:47They just do what they do because they have no choice, okay?
40:50There's a fire burning in you.
40:52You have to let it out.
40:54Otherwise, you can't sleep.
40:57You can't eat, okay?
40:58Poets are prophets who must speak the truth.
41:02Otherwise, they will just suffocate, okay?
41:05They'll just drown in their own misery.
41:07It is impossible to read the compositions of the most celebrated writers of the present day
41:12while being startled with the electric light which burns well within their words, okay?
41:17Poets are the flame itself.
41:20Poets are not human.
41:21They are the messengers of the divine flame, okay?
41:25They just burn.
41:26And when you read their words, you can see the flame in them, okay?
41:30So even though Homer, we don't even know who this guy is.
41:33We don't know, we don't have his picture.
41:35But you can see when we read him, he's alive still, okay?
41:39His words still burn.
41:43They measure the circumference and sound depth of human nature with a comprehensive and
41:49operating spirit and they are themselves perhaps the most sincerely astonished at its
41:53manifestations, okay?
41:55It's all inspiration.
41:56When Homer is speaking, he doesn't know what he's speaking.
41:59He doesn't.
42:00Are you telling me like this guy who says blah, blah, blah, blah, he's able to understand,
42:05oh, this is what Odysseus is doing.
42:07Odysseus is trying to create a reality and he's using imagery.
42:09He's using diction.
42:10No, no, he doesn't understand anything.
42:12He's just blah, blah, blah, blah, okay?
42:14He's a divine fire.
42:16He's a chat.
42:17He's just channeling God, okay?
42:19He's just a portal for God to speak with the universe, with us.
42:29Poets are the heroines of an unprecedented inspiration, okay?
42:33The mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurely cast upon the present.
42:37There are prophets because the future is speaking to us today, okay?
42:41Right?
42:41God is past, future, present.
42:45And so when God speaks, he's also speaking to the future.
42:51The words which express what they understand not.
42:54The prophets which sing to battle and feel not what they inspire.
42:57The influence which is move not, but moves.
42:59Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world, okay?
43:04Poets are prophets, and their words create our reality.
43:09Everything that we know, everything that we do, it's because of language.
43:13Of the language that the poets create, okay?
43:16Doesn't make sense, guys.
43:17That's how Homer created civilization.
43:19Because God willed it that Homer speak truth.
43:24And willed that this truth will spread across the world through his poetry.
43:31Okay?
43:31It's all by design.
43:33Does that make sense?
43:35All right.
43:36Any questions?
43:40Okay.
43:41All right.
43:41So I'll see you guys next class, okay?
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